An electric vehicle, a hybrid vehicle, or a fuel cell vehicle has been known as an electrically powered vehicle configured such that a traction motor can be driven using electric power from a power storage device mounted on the vehicle, represented by a secondary battery. For an electrically powered vehicle, a configuration for charging the power storage device mounted on the vehicle by a power supply outside the vehicle (hereinafter also simply referred to as an “external power supply”) has been proposed. Charging of the power storage device by the external power supply will hereinafter also be simply referred to as “external charging”.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2009-225587 (PTL 1) describes a configuration of an electrically powered vehicle equipped with a power storage device chargeable by an external power supply. In the electrically powered vehicle described in PTL 1, in order to ensure both charging efficiency and operation of an auxiliary load system at the time of external charging, the auxiliary load system including an auxiliary battery is connected to an electric power path between a power converter for external charging and a main battery.
Meanwhile, in the electrically powered vehicle, energy is recovered by generation of regenerative electric power by a traction motor during deceleration. When charging of the power storage device mounted on the vehicle is prohibited or heavily restricted, however, regenerative electric power cannot be recovered by the power storage device. Under such circumstances, control for giving room for the generation of regenerative electric power is described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2008-193772 (PTL 2) and Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2007-159236 (PTL 3).
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2008-193772 (PTL 2) describes control in which, where moving down of a vehicle is detected, electric power stored in a battery (power storage device) or regenerative electric power of an electric motor is consumed by an electric load, such as a compressor. Thus, satisfactory starting performance on an uphill road can be achieved.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2007-159236 (PTL 3) describes control in which, where regenerative electric power is generated by a traction motor, an auxiliary DC/DC converter is controlled in accordance with electric power that can be received by a main power storage device, to charge or discharge a subpower storage device.